Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

(The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval.–Editor.) Maintains Anti-Jewish Discrimination Exists in American Universities

The belief that anti-Jewish discrimination exists in the American universities despite the facts shown in the "Jewish Daily Bulletin" inquiry regarding this question, is voiced by the "Detroit Jewish Chronicle" of Nov. 12 wherein we read:

"According to the reports, were is almost a complete absence of discrimination in scholastic, social and athletic fields. This is, on the face of it, most encouraging and speaks well for our universities, but yet we are a bit skeptical, because we can hardly believe that the colleges and universities are immune from the plague which has infected the rest of the country.

"So much for our incredulity. But there is even a sounder and more persuasive reason for our skepticism and that is furnished by the survey itself.

"The questionnaire is directed to the heads of fraternities and organizations. Aside from a few Hillel Foundations and inactive Menorah Societies, all Jewish student activities are confined to fraternities and sororities. Membership is acquired both in Jewish and non-Jewish fraternities only by those who are socially and economically elite. The poor boy or girl can hope to make Phi Beta Kappa through scholarship, but the social fraternity is closed if one’s parents do not belong to the upper social and economic classes.

"Even the frank and avowed university anti-Semites have admitted that they did not intend to discriminate against the socially elect and economically prosperous. In the case of Harvard, for instance, the hard working poor boys of Boston were the targets at whom the anti-Semitic arrows were shot.

"If replies were received from 5,000 Jewish boys and girls taken from all classes, it would be a much more conclusive investigation than a report gotten from every Jewish fraternity in every college and university in America. This inquiry merely proves that the class of Jews who are always mentioned by the inoffensive, unctuous Gentile, as ‘some of my best friends are Jews,’ do not suffer from any racial or religious discrimination. It is not surprising that those who are completely assimilated, who have acquired all the manners and much of the appearance, not to mention ideals, philosophy and prejudices of the non-Jewish world should find little or no anti-Semitic feeling. But what about the Jewish boy who still has the emotional mannerism of his people; whose modulation is not strictly Anglo-Saxon; whose social graces do not conform to the latest pronouncement on etiquette; who may even speak Yiddish and may evince an interest in political, social and economic questions which are troubling Russia, England, France and Germany, and who is not particularly concerned about the width of his trousers and does not go into ecstacies over the prowess of the football team. Let and honest inquiry be made among these students and we hazard the guess that it will be found that he is as much a victim of discrimination as is his brother and father in the every day non-Jewish world."